nture. [Compare the Raid on
Michmash, or The Feud of Saul and David in the Judges volume.]--Its
interest also rests upon the bitter fable of Jotham in scorn of
kingship: the fable has the effect of a curse since it is literally
fulfilled.

/iv. Samson's Wedding Feast./ This illustrates a variety of story called
'Idyl': the word is almost equivalent to 'trifle,' and the term is
applied to incidents of love or domestic life in contradistinction to
graver matters of history. [Three Idyl Stories (Ruth, Esther, Tobit) are
contained in the Biblical Idyls volume of this series.]--Characteristic
of such a story is the game of riddles; the original riddle, answer, and
rejoinder are all in single couplets.--It is not a pure idyl; feats of
hero strength form another interest, as with other stories of Samson.

/v-vii./ These are Prophetic Stories. As the secularising tendency in
Israel towards visible kings prevails against the original conception of
a spiritual rule by an invisible God there arises an order of
'prophets,' who stand forth as representatives of the invisible Jehovah,
and are thus often in opposition to the external government. So in the
history of The Kings stories of these prophets, with their miraculous
powers, take the place of the stories of heroes and their feats in
earlier parts of the history. During the captivity in Babylon, Daniel in
a similar way represents the Hebrew God against the king and hierarchy
of Babylon.

/vii. Page 63./ I have followed a tradition that the mystic writing on
the wall was interpreted by Daniel reading downward instead of across
[or rather, down, up, down: the form of writing known as boustrophedon,
that is, the way an ox turns in a furrow]. If the handwriting was in an
unknown alphabet Daniel must have said so, or why should his
interpretation be accepted at once? But if the characters were those to
which the beholders were accustomed, but arranged in an unthought-of
direction, it is easy to realise the puzzle of the audience and the
instantaneous acceptance of the solution.

ORATORY

/i. The Oration of Moses at the Rehearsal of the Blessing and the
Curse./ The Book of Deuteronomy, from which this is taken, is a
collection of the Orations and Songs of Moses, constituting his Farewell
to the People of Israel. The general subject both of the oratory and
song is the Covenant between Jehovah and his people, now for the first
time committed to writing, and entrusted by the reti